“See? He don’t know anything about zombies,” Lula said. “You need a machete. You need to dismantle the brain.”
“Do you have a machete?” I asked Lula.
“No,” she said. “I got a nail file, and we could take one of your steak knives.”
“I don’t have any steak knives,” I said.
“Then I guess we could take a table knife. We might be okay if it’s a small zombie.”
“Diggery is waiting,” I said. “Let’s roll.”
* * *
Willow Street Cemetery is attached to a small white Presbyterian church with a classic steeple. It’s on the fringe of the downtown area, and it’s surrounded by nicely maintained modest homes. Lights were on in most of the houses. The church was clearly visible against the dark night. The cemetery was pitch-black. I parked on Willow Street, near the cemetery gate, and we walked into the cemetery.
“Hooty hoooo,” I said.
“Hooo. Hooo,” came back at me.
There wasn’t much moon, and it was difficult to follow the unlit path. Mostly I could feel when I stepped off the cement onto grass.
“Hooo hooo.”
“That better be Diggery hoooing at us,” Lula said.
My thoughts precisely. I’d used up all my adrenaline and bravado at the funeral home. I was running on empty, and I was every bit as freaked out as Lula.
The cement path ended, and we stopped walking. A hooo hooo called to us from the left. I flashed my penlight and caught sight of Diggery and Snacker standing about fifty feet away, next to a large headstone. I doused the penlight and cautiously made my way across the grass.
I had Bob on a short leash. I didn’t know what was in front of us. In case there was more decomposition than Diggery had suggested, I didn’t want Bob to get carried away and make off with a thigh bone.
“I’m gonna wait back here,” Lula said. “It’s not like I knew the deceased or something. I don’t want to intrude on his current resting place.”
“Good decision,” I said.
Nutsy stepped forward. “I guess I’m needed here.”
I looked at Diggery. “Light it up.”
Diggery hit the grave site with his wide-angle Maglite.
“As you can see,” Diggery said, “he’s got on a cross necklace. And there’s a knife lying next to him that I’m thinking fell out of his pocket when they dumped him into the ground. And there’s a clump of gray hair clinging to his skull. Snacker and me think we have a winner here.”
“It’s the wrong cross,” Nutsy said. “That’s not at all how Marcus described it. And there’s not much left of this dead guy but there’s still a lot of his clothes, and it looks like he’s wearing a suit and a tie.”
“Yeah, but he’s got a bunch of bullet holes in him,” Diggery said. “We thought that counted for something.”
Nutsy shook his head. “I don’t think this is Stump.”
“Bummer,” Diggery said. “That’s a big disappointment.”
“It was a good try,” I said to Diggery. “You’re definitely getting closer. Keep looking. I’m sure you’ll find him.”
* * *
It was a little after eleven when Bob and I finally got to Rangeman. I parked in one of Ranger’s personal spaces and went directly to his apartment. He was waiting at the door.
Bob brushed past Ranger and trotted to his water bowl in the kitchen.
“Are you hungry?” Ranger asked me.
“Starving.”
He draped an arm around my shoulders and walked me into the kitchen. “Ella left a sandwich tray in the fridge when she heard you were coming back.”
“God bless Ella.”
Ranger took a bottle out of his wine cooler and uncorked it. “I say that a lot.” He poured out two glasses and handed one to me. “I want to know about tonight.”
“What about the sandwiches?”
He pulled out a plastic-wrapped tray of tea sandwiches and a plastic-wrapped tray of sliders. This was followed by a tray of miniature desserts.
I surveyed the sandwiches and didn’t know where to go first. I wanted to eat everything. My first choice was an egg salad tea sandwich. I ate it in one gulp and chose a chicken salad slider next.
Ranger sat back in his chair with his glass of wine. “Tell me about tonight.”
“I went to the Zelinsky viewing with Grandma, and I dropped a few hints about Plover and fake jewelry. And toward the end of the viewing Plover sort of threatened to kill me. Then Diggery called and said he had a good possibility for Stump, so Lula, Nutsy, Bob, and I went to Willow Street Cemetery to check it out.”
“And?”
“Not Stump.”
I laid waste to the sandwiches and sliders and moved on to the desserts.
“How serious was the death threat?” Ranger asked.
I shrugged. “Don’t know. His family has an impeccable reputation in Trenton, but according to Plover, his father and grandfather weren’t nice guys. Sounds like there’s a legacy of cheating and worse. So, I don’t think Plover would have a problem with killing me. He’s killed before. Maybe more people than Stump. His problem is that getting rid of me is the tip of the iceberg. There are other people involved. There’s Nutsy, Duncan Dugan, and Homeless Marcus. Does he try to kill all of us? Does he leave town, never to be seen again? He tried to intimidate Nutsy by blowing up his parents’ car, and it worked to some extent but not totally. Maybe Plover would go that route again. That’s a scary possibility because I don’t know who he would target.”
“What was his bottom line with you?”
“He said I had until midnight to give him the jewelry.”
Ranger looked at his watch. “You were finishing up the egg salad sandwiches at midnight. You’ve slowed down with the desserts. It’s almost one o’clock.”
“I should have eaten the desserts first. I’m all filled up with egg salad and roast beef. And I’m exhausted. I’m not going to be able to eat the last mini chocolate mousse.”
Ranger’s phone buzzed. He had a short conversation and hung up.
“That was the control room,” he said. “There’s a problem at your apartment. Explosion and fire. They got the notice from your security system and from police dispatch. No more information than that.”
I tried calling Lula and Nutsy but no one picked up.
“I need to be there,” I said.
Ranger was on his feet. “Leave Bob here. I’ll have someone come up to babysit him.”
We took the Porsche Batmobile and reached my apartment building in record time. The parking lot was crammed with fire trucks, EMTs, cop cars, and gawkers. My stomach was filled with food but felt hollow. My heart was beating too fast and too hard. This felt like my bad. I’d tried to do the right thing, but it had turned out hideously wrong. I’d played the tough-guy card at the funeral home, and I’d ignored the midnight deadline, and now Plover was retaliating and playing his tough-guy card.
Ranger parked at the outer perimeter of the lot, and I hit the ground running. I ran past a fire truck and caught sight of an ambulance with people clustered around it. Two of the people were Lula and Nutsy. I stopped running and bent at the waist to breathe. I’d feared the worst, and this was the best. They were on their feet, and they looked okay. Rex was safe, Bob was safe, Lula was safe, Nutsy was safe. That’s all that mattered.